world, as is reported of Democritus (1), Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Rāzī, and others—and this is discussed at length in its proper place (2)—[and this is also the position of those who affirm the origination of all bodies. Al-Rāzī may treat the two positions as one, as he indicated in his Muhassal (3) and elsewhere.
This is because the position known of the Harranians (4) is that there are Five Eternals. They then built upon it the soul’s conception: (a love had arisen within it), and because of that love it became attached to prime matter, thereby furnishing bodies with a cause that entailed their origination (5) (6). Yet despite this, it (7) is false. For (8), if the occurrence of temporal events without a cause is impossible, this position is false, because it entails the occurrence of temporal events without a cause. (9 If the agent’s states are all the same, and no volitional matter subsists in him, it is impossible for one of those states to be distinguished by a cause entailing the origination of bodies 9) (9), and if
(1) (b) alone reads: “Dhuymuqrātīs.”
(2) The phrase “and this is discussed at length in its proper place” is absent only from (ʿ). The text following the opening square bracket is absent from (b), (a), (n), and (m).
(3) This is Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s *Muhassal Afkār al-Mutaqaddimīn wa-l-Mutaʾakhkhirīn*. Al-Rāzī’s biographical notice and the discussion of his *Muhassal* have appeared previously.
(4) The base manuscript (ʿ) reads *al-Jazanānīn*, a corruption of *al-Harrāniyyīn* (the Harranians). See *al-Milal wa-l-Nihal*, 2:58–61.
(5) The final passage, “They then built upon it … entailed their origination,” contains an omission. I concluded that it should be completed by the parenthetical sentence, “and love had arisen within it.” Ibn Taymiyya previously addressed and discussed this issue in the passage cited earlier in this book, 1:210–211.
(6) Here ends the passage omitted from (b) and (a), as noted previously. The omission in (n) and (m) continues for several more lines; its endpoint will be indicated below.
(7) (b) and (a): “And yet it.”
(8) (ʿ): “because.”
(9) The text marked 9–9 is absent from (b) and (a).